Reform and Revolution

Many complex political issues have been
repeatedly cast in terms of whether reforming the
pre-existing system is better than outright revolution and
starting afresh. Since the turn of the century people have
been forced time and again to take sides, to choose between
overthrowing the status quo (whether it was the imperial
government of the Qing Dynasty, the corrupt rule of the
Nationalists in the 1940s, or the Communist Party in the
1980s), or staying with a hide-bound, unchanging, and
decrepit bureaucracy. In reality, the choices have never
been that straight forward or clear-cut. In THE GATE OF
HEAVENLY PEACE, people like Liang Xiaoyan, Wu Guoguang,
Ding Zilin, and others, argue that long-term change in
China may not necessarily be brought about by radical
revolution. In the website section
Parallel Cultures: Reform and Revolution
in China and Eastern Europe, two leading Central European intellectuals meditate on
the pros and cons of this question (see "Revolution or Reform,
" George Konrád [with Iván Szelényi],
from Konrád, The Melancholy of Rebirth: Essays from Post-Communist
Central Europe, 1989-1994, New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995, pp. 34-40).

Read an essay by Liu Xiaobo, a university teacher and a
leading activist in 1989 who was interviewed for THE GATE
OF HEAVENLY PEACE, on "That Holy Word, 'Revolution,
'" in which he writes:

The 1989 protest movement once again
showed that "revolution" prevailed. The venom of
"revolution" is too deep within us, with the result that
we continually become unconscious sacrificial items for
the cause of revolutionary justice. We still are
infatuated with "revolution."